"The Mist" advertises itself as a horror film. And in some respects, it is a horror film in the conventional sense of the genre. But in others, it becomes a psychological horror film, a battle between us and them when we´re all human, thrust into a situation where no one has the magic bullet which leads to salvation. In those situations, we turn to what we feel most comfortable with. What happened after September 11? Most American turned to friends and family out of a sense of safety; others took to a hawkish war stance because they thought guns would protect them. The same dynamic is at work in Frank Daranont´s ("The Green Mile," "The Shawshank Redemption") production. Add in a third place to turn to for comfort-religion-and an powder keg is lit.
Following a freak storm in a small Maine town, David Drayton (Thomas Jane), his son Billy (Nathan Gamble) and next door neighbor Brent Norton (Andre Braugher) head to the local grocery store for supplied. While there, an eerie mist overtakes town, trapping the customers in the store. When they´re told something is in the mist, the initial reaction is to scoff. As flying creatures begin to attack the store and the survivors, one woman-Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden)-becomes a powerful voice, claiming the mist and the creatures are God´s vengeance on the Earth.
The Motion Picture Association of America ratings board gave "The Mist" an R rating for a reason. It´s is a violent, bloody, profane movie, no question. Any number of people are dismembered, gutted, shot, stabbed, eaten and burned. There is copious amounts of blood, not to mention cursing-as we´d expect to hear in a situation like this. The one thing that rating and advisory doesn´t take into account is the vile nature of Carmody and her eventual group of followers. At its core, this film is less about spiders which flood out of dead bodies than it is about an even more terrifying force: man´s inhumanity toward man. The inhumanity here comes from the religious explanations for the mist (really, it´s a fog, but that name was already taken).
At least initially, no one listens to a thing Harden´s Mrs. Carmody says, judging her to be a crackpot. In a seemingly prophesizing way, she foretells the creatures coming at night and that more of their group are going to die. Had any of the survivors actually thought about her words, they´d make perfect sense sans a direct connection to God. Moreover, these people live in the modern world. Have they never seen a horror film? Of course the evil menace returns at night. Any group of survivors is little more than cannon fodder. It doesn´t require divine intervention to "see" either of these thing. That´s of no consequence, though, since if these thoughts did occur to anyone, the ultimate battle wouldn´t be waged.
That battle, for lack of a better definition, is religion vs. secularism. Because these creatures are something right out of a nightmare, they can´t possibly have any scientific rationale. So the religion card is played, so much so that near the end, Carmody has stirred by the former neighbors into two groups: her followers and a smaller group-led by David Drayton-who keep their wits about them. It´s interesting that, in the first encounter with the monsters, no one believes Drayton or the men with him. They all believe he´s telling a lie, trying to pull one over the people in town for a vacation. It turns out he is telling the truth (obviously, since we watch the entire bloody encounter); yet few people trust him enough to forsake the religious dogma.
Even Norton, woefully wasting Braugher in a throwaway and thankless role, insists on being one of the first people out of the store. (It should be noted he leads the black people out of the supermarket, which elicited howls from the audience I was with. We don´t know for sure what happens to Norton or the people he leaves with-save one-but there are only two possibilities which become clear when the credits roll.) And with each attack, Carmody increases the ferocity of her preaching. So much so that, in a shocking crazed mob moment, she accuses, judges and demands the execution of a hometown soldier from a nearby military base.
That scene crystallizes every point the script, adapted by Darabont from the original novella by Stephen King, tries to hammer home in the course of two hours. The accusation the mist, the creatures and the deaths are the fault of this one officer is preposterous to any rational thinking person. At this point, though, most of the shut-ins aren´t thinking rationally anymore. They´re scared--terrified, even--and need to point the finger at someone, no matter who it is. So when the officer is stabbed repeatedly and thrown alive to the monster, it´s a disturbing commentary on mob mentality. For a moment as the butcher knife is being plunged into his stomach, Carmody seems to understand what she has done and that she is no better than the creatures outside the doors. But then she turns quickly into the mob leader once again, calling for a sacrifice to God. That sacrifice is Billy.
All in the name of appeasing God. Yes, the script goes out of its way for the majority of the running time to depict the believers as wack-a-doo people blindly following without understanding the underlying ideas. That´s the social message "The Mist" is trying to convey: believe what you want, but have the fortitude to question at every turn. Don´t follow blindly.
At least that´s what we´re meant to think until the disturbingly sick, gut wrenching ending. No fear, I won´t spoil it here. Suffice to say it feeds into the idea of faith.
"The Mist" is populated with recognizable character actors who perform their roles admirably, but are all upstaged by Harden. She has perhaps the juiciest role in the film, being allowed to channel all her fear into one act: preaching. Whereas everyone else is concerned with boarding up the windows or gathering medicine, her sole occupation is to pray for salvation. Carmody doesn´t set out to be vile or evil; in fact, I don´t think she is either of things. The script does make her out to be the villain of the piece (and a event near the finale brought cheers from the crowd again), yet she is only doing what her faith tells her to do. The performance never delves into complete crazed religious nutcase.
Additionally, the script doesn´t turn the thirty-odd people in the market into the usual cannon fodder. Sure, most of the people stay in the background and don´t have big roles but they don´t gratuitously die en masse like you´d expect. One or two bite the dust without a whole lot of development and one scene designed to further two characters is hideously out of place.
One side note: one shot within the last twenty minutes seems to want to emulate a pivotal and awe-inspiring scene in "Jurassic Park," yet it fails to generate any awe or spectacle. Maybe it´s the film age we live in, but it looks completely pedestrian. (A mini-tangent: I never fully bought the explanation for the events in the film we get from the military. There´s nothing to suggest the technology exists to do what it is alleged they did. It´s one of the strengths of the film, though, that the story never feels the need to explain in excruciating detail everything it puts on screen. The audience is supposed to take it on…you guessed it, faith.)
"The Mist" gets an unqualified recommendation not only as a horror film but as an all purpose movie. I´ve glossed over a dozen small points or character moments which could only be explained by detailing the entire narrative-which would be a disservice. This is a film which shouldn´t be spoiled for any reason. The ending is as powerful--if not moreso--than the finale to "In the Valley of Elah" from earlier this fall. It rates a 7 out of 10.